My Deep-sea Fishery

On weekdays, harp seals avoid humans.

The diving ability of the harp seal is very strong, and it can go to very deep waters to look for food. Some biologists have done tests and found that the average diving depth of the harp seal reaches 200 meters, and the average diving time reaches ten minutes. .

But harp seals are rare.

Not uncommon either.

Every year during the breeding season of harp seals, an average of more than 2,000 harp seals gather on the ice surface of the birthplace of harp seals per square kilometer.

This is one of the main reasons why many animal protection agencies only protect harp seals from their pups.

However, the reproductive ability of harp seals is not strong.

The gestation period of female harp seals is as long as eleven and a half months. Around March every year, female harp seals will breed on the ice floes, and each litter will only give birth to one litter.

Harp seals are elongated at birth, about one meter long, but weigh only about ten kilograms.

Newborn harp seal pups are white with only a little black on their snouts.

The most difficult thing is that the harp seals do not have a fixed mate, and the pups never know their fathers, and they depend on the mother seals to raise their offspring.

In the first two weeks of life, harp seal pups have an extremely high mortality rate.

Female seals spend most of their time underwater looking for food. Whether a laughing seal encounters a natural enemy on the ice depends on luck.

However, as long as the most dangerous two weeks have passed, the weight of the pup can almost triple, and a thick layer of fat will be formed on the body to resist the cold, but at this time, the cub of the harp seal does not mean that it will survive up.

At this time, the female seal will return to the sea, and the harp seal pup that has not yet fully grown will be abandoned on the ice alone.

On the ice, harp seal pups molt from white to silver-gray alone.

They can go into the water to look for food until they are completely independent after one month.

Juvenile harp seals lose 50% of their body fat and die at a rate of 30% between abandonment and self-predation.

"You guys wait here. I'll go down and see if I can catch this guy." Gao Chuang said with a smile.

Xiang Yang was quite speechless. This harp seal was nearly 1.7 meters long and weighed at least 200 catties. If Gao Chuang really let Gao Chuang go down, whoever caught it would not know.

What made Xiang Yang even more speechless was that Fang Youqun actually said at this time, "I should be the one to catch it. This harp seal was first discovered by our captain, and it belongs to us."

Xiang Yang rubbed his forehead, the old and the young are really bold and fat.

"Let's forget it. A seal can't be sold for much money. Don't go down, so as not to be in danger again." Xiang Yang directly ignored Fang Youqun's words, and patiently persuaded Gao Chuang.

Gao Chuang frowned. Although the harp seal had a certain attack ability, Gao Chuang was sure to deal with this harp seal.

But Gao Chuang couldn't ignore Xiang Yang's words.

Because some harp seals are very good friends with killer whales.

Killer whales are very strange creatures. They are the gods of war on the sea. They dare to attack all marine life including blue whales, and they also prey on various seals.

But killer whales only attack seals passing by outside their territory.

Killer whales never attack native seals within their territory.

Instead of attacking, sometimes they even provide protection to the seals, and they will play with the seals under the sea.

Well, it's almost like a human has a pet.

And this sea area is precisely the sea area where whales come and go. To be able to live so leisurely in the sea area where whales come and go, there is a great possibility that this seal is a native seal in this sea area.

"Forget it." Gao Chuang waved his hand, "Let's continue talking about the Weddell Sea, tell me what you think, whether you want to go or not."

"It's up to Mr. Gao to make a decision. Whether you go or not, I have the same idea with you."

"Haha, since you don't catch it, this harp seal is mine."

Of these two sentences, the former one was intended to be said to Gao Chuang, and the second one was shouted out by Fang Youqun.

"No one on board is allowed to enter the water without my order."

Xiang Yang glared at Fang Youqun viciously first, and gave him a stern warning, then turned his head and said, "President Gao, let's sit down and talk, in fact, no matter whether we go or not, we will go deep into Antarctica soon. In the sea area, a lot of preparation work needs to be done."

The two found a seat and sat down.

Gao Chuang fell into memories again, "Actually, the first time I went to the Weddell Sea was by accident. At that time, the Weddell Sea itself was not in the route we planned at the beginning, but suddenly there was a more important thing that we needed to go to immediately. Going to the current Great Wall Station, we are very close to the Weddell Sea after finishing that work, and the captain joked that we should go to the Weddell Sea next stop.”

Xiang Yang blinked, "Then you went to the Weddell Sea?"

"Yes." Gao Chuang nodded and said, "That day we boarded a huge ice floe with wine in the Weddell Sea, and then drank a lot of wine on the ice. The champagne was dazzling in the Antarctic sun, and even And surprisingly bright red."

"I remember that it was summer in Antarctica at that time, the sun would disappear in the early morning and then rise again soon, although the sunshine was so abundant, we were still very cold, because the Weddell Sea is the cold pole of the world, and the Sea ice has a history of thousands of years, and theoretically it will never melt."

"At that time, penguins were not a protected animal. At that time, a group of young guys like us slaughtered penguins in a competition in the Weddell Sea."

"I was young at that time, and I was very competitive. In addition, I was the second officer on the ship at a young age. In addition, the status of sailors in our country was low at that time. Many people on the ship refused to accept me, so as long as I can catch I didn't let go of any of the penguins I lived in, and by nightfall, I had killed three Adélie penguins, two king penguins, and more than a dozen emperor penguins."

Xiang Yang blinked.

Adélie penguin is a small Antarctic bird with little meat, but although Adélie penguin has less oil, it is not easy to hunt at all. It is the most aggressive penguin among all penguins. For one, they can often drive a group of just-adult emperor penguins away from the ice floes by themselves.

It is extremely difficult to kill three Adélie penguins.

As for the dozen or so emperor penguins, Xiang Yang didn't find it strange at all. In front of human butcher knives, emperor penguins are just slightly larger chickens, ducks and geese. Basically, as long as they are adult men, they can kill them.